Motorbike accident from being hit by a falling object?

It’s rare, but it can happen.

For drivers, running over a small object that has fallen off the back of a van, or perhaps going over a wheel trim that’s flung off another vehicle, may not be bad at all.

However, for a biker, even small objects can be a massive danger.

Something as small as a wheel trim, a spare wheel, small slat of wood or even a bit of cardboard can cause a biker to be injured in an accident. Our two-wheeled treasures may not be able to maintain stability from riding over much on the road, so if you’ve been injured as a rider because of a falling object, you have rights.

If you’ve been injured as a biker because of a falling object coming off another vehicle, you’re still entitled to claim for personal injury compensation. In the same way that a car driver can be negligent for pulling out of a side road and crashing into you, a driver can also be negligent for failing to secure their vehicle and / or load properly.

As with most cases, you have to prove that the person responsible has been negligent. If they have failed to secure a load to their vehicle, or their vehicle is in disrepair and that’s the reason you have been hit or injured as a result of a falling object, you can make a claim for compensation. You should be able to claim in the same way as any other rider who has been hit by a negligent driver.

The driver should hopefully be insured, and their insurance should cover you.

What if they drove off?

The offending driver may not have even been aware that their vehicle has caused an accident. If something falls off their vehicle, they may drive on completely unaware that something has happened.

Hopefully, you have a helmet camera that has caught their registration number. As long as you have that – at the very least – we should have enough to be able to do an insurance check on the vehicle and find out who we need to submit the claim to.

If you don’t have a reg number, you may still be able to claim via the Motor Insurers’ Bureau. They can pay compensation to victims of untraced and uninsured drivers, but you should make sure to report the accident to the police immediately, and seek medical attention straight away as well.

Both of these may be vital evidence the Bureau use to justify the case.

Hopefully, you have a plate on a helmet cam. But the key thing is, as a rider injured by an object falling off of another vehicle, you can still claim for compensation.